Are you willing to stay connected with your friends and family and their updates? Obviously yes. In the modern era everyone uses social platforms to stay connected with each other. These platforms provide a way for communication, sharing information and much more.
Users across worldwide access social media by different means like using web-apps, mobile apps and custom-apps. This allows the individual to share their content, memories, ideas, products and much more.
The social media service providers spent a specific amount of their income on their advertisements to introduce their new updates and features.
Social Media – At a Glance
Social media platforms based on the Internet for communication. It permits to users to stay connected through various ways like conversation, sharing info, sharing posts, blogging, podcasts and more.
Top 5 Social Media Platforms
Here are some most used social platforms in the world
Facebook, the most commonly used social platform in the world for communication. People use this platform to share the content like photos, publish videos, tag their friends and family members, share their locations. In this way, they connect to each other.
Facebook messenger is also a part of Facebook and is specially for messaging. It can also send and receive photos, audios and videos. Several people are using this messenger to communicate.
The AI (Artificial Intelligence) is introduced in Facebook which is helpful for many people for their purposes.
Key Statistics
Here I will show you some key statistics of Facebook
- Â Facebook has 3,065 million monthly active users
- Â With more than 50% users spent time watching videos.
- Â Facebook has removed 691 million fake accounts in the 4th quarter of 2023.
- Facebook’s reach will continue to grow to around 75.79% of people worldwide in the next several years.
- Â 56.3% of the users are male while 43.7% users are female respectively.
-  India is the biggest Facebook audience with more than 314 million users.
- In 2024, Facebook ads will reach a potential of 1.98 billion people.
YouTube
The second most frequently used social platform worldwide is YouTube. Users access YouTube to share and view the videos content. It was launched by the three ex-employees of PayPal in 2005. Users enjoy long video content, as well as short video content.
YouTube shorts are viewed more than the long video content, as the content in the short video is liked and enjoyed because of its short time of 60 seconds.
YouTube also offers a monetization program for video creators, allowing them to monetize their content and channel to earn a specific amount.
Key Statistics
- Â YouTube has 2,504 million monthly active users
- Â Viewers watch 70 billion short videos every day on YouTube.
- Most of the YouTube users are of the age group 25-34.
- YouTube generates 70 billion views per day on YouTube Shorts.
- There are more than 113.9 million active channels on YouTube.
- Daily average time spent on YouTube is 19 minutes.
WhatsApp is a messaging app which was initially designed for messaging purposes. Lateron, features like voice message, video messages,voice call, video call, showing status, sharing images,locations and much more introduced.
WhatsApp users can create a group for collective discussions or create a broadcast to send a common message.
Now a new feature of Meta AI (Artificial Intelligence) is introduced to users which is increasing its fame among influencers.
Key Statistics
- WhatsApp has 2.7 billion million MAU’s in the world
- WhatsApp is a mobile messaging app in the world.
- It is also the fourth most downloaded app across the world.
- There are 0.5 billionusers use status feature daily
- Around 175 million users send messages to WhatsApp business accounts.
Instagram is the most popular social platform among its users worldwide. It is the social network owned by Meta. People are more likely to see short videos(Reels), sharing stories, posts and much more.People explore the world by seeing short-time videos, and they are introduced to new trends that are becoming famous worldwide.
Instagram is used to grow the business by posting shoppable posts to showcase your products. This social platform is used by most active users on the internet making it 4th largest network.
Key Statistics
- Â Instagram has 2000 million monthly active users
- 51.8% users are male and 48.2% users are female respectively.
- 69.9% of users use Instagram app to send or share their photos and videos.
- Â 44% of Instagram users use it to shop weekly.
- People spend around 29.7 minutes average time on Instagram.
Snapchat
Snapchat is fifth biggest social network which has 800 million+ monthly active users worldwide. Its main feature is to connect people by sharing their snaps and photos.
It has introduced a new feature of AI like in WhatsApp and Facebook which has positive results for the users who are interested in it. My AI is a chatbot available in snapchat which is capable of integration into group chats and it also provides recommendations to the users to enjoy a best experience.
Key Statistics
- Snapchat has 406 million daily active users
- It is the 5th most popular messaging app.
- Â Around 20% user are teenagers.Â
- Â There is 6.8% increment in audience growth of Snapchat yearly.
- Â India has a high number of snapchat users with 200 million users worldwide.
Benefits of Social Media For Businesses
Here are some benefits of using social media which helps in growth of business.
Increasing Brand Popularity
Social Media marketing impacts positively on improving and increasing the brand awareness. Social media helps people to discover new brands and products. It is beneficial to the people who are new to starting a business. It also helps you to explain how different you are from your competitors.
People like to read authentic posts content on social media , so the more authentic your posts or ads of your business, the greater the chances of expanding the brand.
Increase Website Traffic
Using social media, you can increase the traffic to your business site. This will result in an increment in sales of your product. Social media posts and ads play an essential role to drive traffic to your business website.
Sharing great and informative content from your website or blog to social channels is an effective way to drive readers to your post.
Boost the Sale of product
Social media plays a key role to increase the sales of your business products. A number of people use social media to grow and enhance the sales of products by posting posts, sharing posts to social channels. In this way they make such efforts to increase their sales to an achievable level.
Cost Effective
Social media is a cost-effective way. It is not only used for communication but it is used for promoting businesses. The important benefits of using social media are its cost-effectiveness. The cost is less as compared to other mediums for the promotion of your brand or business.Â
Retargeting
Retargeting refers to connect to your target consumers on multiple platforms that you connected initially. When a customer visits an e-commerce website and he buys nothing and goes through it. The thing he wants to buy or visit shows to him on another platform as ad, involves retargeting which is beneficial for your business growth.
Pros and Cons of Using Social Media Platforms:
| Pros | Cons |
| Staying connected with friends and family | Security and privacy concerns |
| Helps in business growth | Negative impacts on health |
| Provides an Opportunity to earn | Misguiding and fake information |
| Good communication tool | |
| It’s educational |
The Final Verdict
In conclusion, social media now has become an essential part of our lives. People across worldwide use different social media platforms to connect with their friends, and family. In early years, social media introduced a new way for promotions of businesses and organizations and to offer new opportunities.
Social media gives rise to online communities to connect the users who have the same interests, hobbies, and experiences. It enhances the youth by providing platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter so they engage themselves in a variety of information and knowledge.
